Posts Tagged ‘Playism’

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What’s better than a point-and-click adventure game with retro-inspired pixel art, a hero named Brick M. Stonewood, and the quote “truth spilled out at 60 km/s from the barrel of a gun?” Not a lot, if I’m being honest.

There is one thing, though: A roguelike shmup called Starr Mazer: DSP [official site]. Fast, furious and chock-full of ultra-sexy retro graphics, it’s one heaping helping of throwback goodness. It also happens to be a prequel to Starr Mazer, the hybrid adventure game and shmup referenced above. Yeah, those things exist.

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NEO AQUARIUM – The King of Crustaceans – [official site] is not a new game, but it is a game about laser crabs, barnacles, and lobsters fighting each other and it does have the name NEO AQUARIUM – The King of Crustaceans – and that’s certainly worth another look at now it’s surfaced again on Steam. Though I think I might prefer the subtitle of its sequel: Ace of Seafood.

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Last time I posted about D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die [official site], I was a bit vague about what it is. It’s an adventure game, right? But not like typical adventure games. And it has action segments. And it all has loads of QTEs that tire your character. And coming from the chap behind Deadly Premonition, it’s obviously a bit weird. It’s… look, you can see for yourself as a demo has arrived ahead of its release next week. Finally, respite from relying upon this dolt’s foolish clacking!

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Whatever Hidetaka ‘Swery’ Suehiro is up to, colour me interested. An episodic adventure game about a former cop trying to solve the murder of his wife by diving back in time? Yep, I’m up for D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die [official site]. After Deadly Premonition, which he directed, I want more of whatever’s in his head. Scrape it out and offer it to us. Yes, including the idea he has for “a story about a high school girl detective who uses the imagination (fantasising) energy from masturbating to help her solve murders.” Sure thing, Swery!

For now, I’ll settle for D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die, which next week comes from Xbox One to PC.

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When we posted about the Touhou Project games starting to receive official western releases, I was surprised by quite how many of you are fans of the Japanese bullet hell shoot ’em up series. If you have Strong Opinions on this subject, then you can now offer them to Playism, Touhou’s western publisher.

Playism are polling fans to see which ‘Touhou Derivative’ games (fan games, basically) folks would like to see get western releases. They promise nothing, but are curious what you think.

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Well, you’re not going to be unable to find it from googling, at least. REVOLVER360 RE:ACTOR, which I’m bowing to the capitalised stylisation of because it’s rad as hell, was brought to my attention by a comment in this weeks What Are You Playing? The ridiculosity of its name grabbed my interest, followed by its light-show visuals and thumping soundtrack. It’s a standard bullet-hellish blaster, with the neat gimmick of being able to rotate the world to dodge bullets and flank enemies. Available for a while, it’s just made the jump to Steam with the help of Playism, who seem to be the latest publisher cashing in on non-English indie games’ lack of exposure. There’s a demo available from developers Cross Eaglet’s Japanese website. Some thoughts on that and a trailer if you can angle yourself right.

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La Mulana is many things: a homage to the MSX system, the Indiana Jones Metroidvania game I always wanted, fiendishly difficult, beautifully designed. Now that the enhanced Wiiware version finally has its PC release, available at Playism for $14.99, I’ve settled on a new description that should excite most of the people who have somehow failed to be excited already. La Mulana is Dark Souls as a retro platform game, requiring thought and care, and punishing the over-confident. Trailer below.